New “Top Gun: Maverick” Trailer Sees Tom Cruise Back in the Danger Zone
Pete “Maverick” Mitchell might be not a young hotshot flyboy anymore, but the dude can still go Mach 4 with his hair on fire. Maverick is played, of course, by Tom Cruise, who returns to the role that made him an international superstar way back in 1986 when the original Top Gun took flight. Paramount Pictures has released a new trailer for Top Gun: Maverick, which opens with a bunch of hotshot young flyboys and girls showing off and peacocking in front of each other,...
Chris Hemsworth Shares “Extraction 2” Update Including Insane Helicopter Stunt
Director Sam Hargrave and star Chris Hemsworth teamed up for one of the most satisfying action films in recent years with Extraction in 2020, a nimbly directed, relentless action-thriller that deployed Hemsworth as a brutally effective, morally adrift mercenary with the unimprovable name of Taylor Rake. The story was centered on Rake taking on a job to rescue a crime lord’s son—lucrative work, but insanely dangerous. At the end of the film, it seemed like Rake was dead (he was shot up and fell off the side of a bridge),...
Marvel Reveals New “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Photos
We’ve got a fresh look at director Sam Raimi’s highly-anticipated return to Marvel moviemaking, folks. Four new images for Raimi’s upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness have arrived, revealing a few of the good Doctor’s allies in his coming battle with forces that might, at last, be beyond his control. Let the MCU experts dissect these new images for clues to the upcoming saga, which includes our first glimpse at Xochitl Gomez, an MCU newcomer playing the superhero America Chavez...
“CODA” Wins Best Picture at a Wild Oscars
Well, we’d be living in a better world if the 94th Academy Awards would be remembered for CODA‘s remarkable Best Picture win. It was five years ago when we wrote about what we believed at the time was the most shocking night in Oscars history. That was when Damien Chazelle’s La La Land was announced as the Best Picture winner only for the world to find out, moments later, that actually, the real winner was Barry Jenkins’...
“The Batman” Deleted Scene Reveals a Major Confrontation With SPOILER ALERT
Riddle me this—who might be the most unexpected person Batman (Robert Pattinson) might turn to for help in capturing the Riddler (Paul Dano)? How about the Joker (Barry Keoghan)? In a new deleted scene revealed by writer/director Matt Reeves, Batman visits Gotham’s most notorious Clown Prince of Chaos in Arkham asylum to seek his help in catching the latest psychopath to terrorize the city.
Reeves has even created his own series of riddles on this website which,...
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” Oscar-Nominated Hair & Makeup Team on Helping Chastain Channel Faye
Come this Sunday at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram, and Justin Raleigh may all win their first gold statuette for hair and makeup. The makeup department head, hair department head, and head special makeup effects artist, respectively, are nominated for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the biopic starring Jessica Chastain, nominated for lead actress, and Andrew Garfield as the renowned and scandal-ridden evangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker. The team has already received BAFTA and Critics Choice Awards,...
Oscar-Nominated “The Power of the Dog” Editor Peter Sciberras on Building Unbearable Tension
Jane Campion’s tense, character-driven Western, The Power of the Dog, is a critical favorite and Oscar frontrunner. The film’s vast landscapes (shot in New Zealand, much to the chagrin of actors not involved with the movie) are a backdrop to a slow-moving family melodrama: sweet and earnest George (Jesse Plemons) marries widowed Rose (Kirsten Dunst), bringing out the worst in Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), George’s volatile, curiously standoffish brother.
The brothers are also partners in a successful ranch,...
“Flee” Director Jonas Rasmussen on His Historic Triple Oscar-Nominated Doc
Director Jonas Rasmussen remembers being a kid in Denmark and watching television news in 1990 when the first McDonald’s opened in Moscow, supposedly signifying a brave new world of post-Soviet capitalism. Rasmussen never could have imagined that the Afghan refugee standing just outside of the camera range would one day star in his acclaimed documentary Flee. The only movie in Oscar history to be triple-nominated in Best Foreign Language, Best Documentary, and Best Animation categories, Flee blends animation with bits of archival video footage to illustrate Amin Nawabi’s harrowing journey to freedom...
Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Sound Mixer Paul Massey on “No Time To Die”
“When I started out, I had no objective whatsoever to become a re-recording mixer,” says Paul Massey, who may well be the most accomplished accidental Oscar winner in history. Growing up in London, Massey played trumpet in wedding bands, worked at a recording studio and then, he says, “I made a slow, totally unintentional transition to film post-production.”
Like Ridley Scott, one of his most frequent collaborators, Massey, Academy Award winner for Bohemian Rhapsody, moves briskly from project to project...
Oscar-Nominated “Dune” Screenwriter Jon Spaihts on Decoding Frank Herbert’s Tome
For Dune‘s Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jon Spaihts, the opportunity to help Denis Villeneuve find a way to crack the elusive code to adapting Frank Herbert’s magisterial, meaty sci-fi tome came at a funny time. “I’d decided I wanted to focus on a personal project that I’d direct myself, so I told my reps, ‘No new jobs,'” Spaiths says. “Then my agent called and said Denis Villeneuve is doing Dune, and I said, ‘Get me in a room as fast as possible.'”...
Oscar-Nominated “Dune” DP Greig Fraser on Taming an Epic Sci-Fi Beast
Denis Villeneuve is the director to finally tame a film version of Dune, Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel that, over the decades, accidentally spawned a cottage industry of unsuccessful visual projects (see: David Lynch’s 1984 Dune, the SyFy channel’s attempt in 2000, and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, which never saw the light of day). Casting Timothée Chalamet as young prince Paul Atreides and Zendaya as Chani of the Fremen, the original native inhabitants of Arrakis,...
How the Oscar-Nominated “tick, tick…BOOM!” Editors Evoked the Excitement of Live Theatre
The magic of live theatre is a precious element that is often elusive to the lens. Countless legendary Broadway performances have sparkled and faded in a night, rarely ever recorded. Even a long run of a popular musical will never see the exact same show cross the stage twice.
Many movie adaptations of musicals are enormous affairs with extravagant sets, costumes, and visual details that fill in the gaps that exist only in the imagination of a live audience...
Chris Hemsworth Teases Intense “Extraction 2” Action Scene
Chris Hemsworth knows his way around an action scene, but his work as Tyler Rake in the first Extraction was about as intense as it gets. Now, Hemsworth has teased a scene from Extraction 2, which will pick up sometime after the end of the first film, you know, after Rake was shot, fell off a bridge, and presumably died. Tyler Rake’s survival in director Sam Hargrave’s hit film seemed likely but was far from definite when the credits rolled—then Netflix made Hemsworth’s return to the role in the sequel official at their big Tudum event this past September...
“Dune” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Sandworms, Ornithopters & More
The experience of seeing writer/director Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated epic Dune was, for this viewer, as much an auditory experience as it was a visual one. The sounds of the alien world depicted in part one of Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel are mesmerizing, from the whispering sands shifting across the desert planet of Arrakis to the oddly soothing purr of the dragon fly-winged aircraft, the ornithopter. For supervising sound editor Mark Mangini and supervising sound editor and sound designer Theo Green,...
“The Adam Project” Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper on Teaming With Ryan Reynolds & Shawn Levy
The development of The Adam Project has its own time-traveling origin story, one that dates back roughly ten years. Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper says the production took flight, in part, because of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) which stars Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and Dwayne Johnson in a reboot of the beloved Robin Williams’ film that sucks them into a video game in an adventurous fight for survival.
“Before Jumanji came out,...
New “Morbius” Video Promises the Official Opening of the Sony/Marvel Multiverse
“Morbius is and always has been a standout persona in the Marvel lore,” says Jared Leto at the top of a new Morbius vignette. Leto takes on the role of Dr. Michael Morbius, one of the strangest, most misunderstood characters in Marvel’s vast canon. In the film, from director Daniel Espinosa, Leto’s Dr. Morbius is a decent if monstrously ambitious man trying to cure the world of a rare blood disorder. The catch is the good doctor suffers from the disorder himself,...
Jordan Peele, Christopher Nolan & More Developing New IMAX Cameras
IMAX, the best large-format camera developer in the world, is working with some of the most tech-savvy, talented filmmakers on the planet to develop new film cameras. The Hollywood Reporter scoops that writer/directors Jordan Peele and Christopher Nolan are just two of the filmmakers giving the company feedback. They’re joined by some of the best cinematographers in the business, including Rachel Morrison (Black Panther), Bradford Young (Arrival),...
“The Outfit” Director Graham Moore on His Meticulous, Mobbed-Up Debut
Graham Moore, who won both an Oscar and a Writers Guild of America award for his adaptation of The Imitation Game, has joined a growing list of scribes going behind the camera to helm a production. The Outfit, his feature film directorial debut, has arrived, which the longtime scribe co-wrote with Jonathan McClain.
The movie follows a highly skilled English tailor, played by Academy Award winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies),...
How “The Batman” Batsuit Designers Went Lean & Mean
Outside of The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves (who co-wrote the script with Peter Craig), Glyn Dillon and David Crossman probably have The Batman‘s coolest credits attached to their names. Both share the title of Batsuit costume designers, with Dillon serving as chief concept artist and Crossman the costume supervisor. In terms of superhero icons, it doesn’t get much better than designing the Caped Crusader, and the tandem created a unique silhouette for a younger Bruce Wayne,...
“The Batman” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Finding Light in the Darkness
At a gripping three hours, The Batman isn’t so much an endurance test as it is a lengthy visual puzzle, one that takes place primarily after hours. Director Matt Reeves’s take on Batman (Robert Pattinson) may be the franchise’s most disaffected nocturnal not-so-superhero yet. Working, brooding, and convening with Alfred (Andy Serkis) from dusk ’til dawn, this Bruce Wayne is consumed by trying to undo a complex web of official corruption hidden by Gotham City’s entrenched crop of violent mafiosos...
